Still six months, three weeks, three days – babytime

How many times have you been here before, Dana?

I think I’ve lost count. To me this is just another waiting room, just another
hospital stay to add to the long list.

One of this days he’s not going to come home.

Please don’t let that be today.

I got down to the hospital as fast as an almost seven-month pregnant woman
could. I think I sped through at least two red lights.

Now I’m sitting the surgical waiting room, a room that’s not foreign to me. It’s
just another four walls, just another nervous nail biting waiting period. It’s just another
stack of insurance forms to fill out.

Or is it?

Things are different now. I move my hand down to my stomach and absently rub
it. Things are different.

My mother joined me about an hour ago. I don’t know who called her, but I’m
glad they did. He’s been in surgery for almost four hours now.

That’s a long time. But he’s had longer.

I talked to the doctor. He’s a mess, basically. Hit his head on the dashboard; he’s
lucky he missed the windshield. He doesn’t has airbags in his car; something that I
constantly argue with him about. We usually take my car because of it. But today we left at different times, in different cars.

I should have made him take my car.
His other injuries include internal bleeding, broken ribs, and a nice little
pneumothorax caused by one of the ribs that basically decided to snap in half.

I’m calm, I’m surprisingly calm.

That is what is worrying me the most.

The police talked to me also. They had five eyewitnesses who saw a brown van
tailgate Mulder for almost five minutes, before it suddenly pushed itself forward, causing
Mulder to easily lose control.

The car had no license plates. And tinted windows. No one saw the driver.

Oh and the car was abandoned less then two miles from the hospital, wiped
completely clean of any fingerprints.

And I’m calm.

Secretly, I’m thinking about how many people I could knockoff with my gun. I
leave my hand on my stomach. One thing I don’t want to do now is get myself so worked up that I send myself into labor.

Mulder would kill me if I had this baby without him.

I don’t want to have this baby without him. I can just think of the crib at home
he’s worked so hard to put together. He finished it two days ago and yesterday it
collapsed. I should have seen it coming.

Just like the table that collapsed in the _Joy Luck Club_. I remember high school
English class. Didn’t my English teacher say that in every story when something fell or
collapsed that it foreshadowed a bad situation to come?

I never did like English. Science was definitely more my forte. That way
everything always had a definite answer, there was no "it could go either way" or "you
have to read between the lines to see the true meaning." At least not in my schooling.

The X-Files and Mulder couldn’t have proved me more wrong.

I think in the fifth hour of surgery I fell asleep because the next thing I knew
someone was shaking my shoulder.

"Ms. Scully?" I sit up suddenly, cursing myself for falling asleep. I find a doctor
dressed in green scrubs standing in front of me, a chart in hands.

"Mr. Mulder is out of surgery."

Out of surgery? I glance at the clock on the wall and discover I’ve only been
asleep for about half an hour. I stop cursing myself.

"How is he?" I manage to mumble, my voice not completely with it yet.

The doctor gripped the chart in his hands, something I recognized as a ‘I’ve got
bad news to tell you’ grip. A girl I went to medical school with used the tactic; I told her
that it tips off the family members immediately. She still did it.

"I’ll be honest with you, Ms. Scully, he’s in bad shape. We managed to patch him
up, but he’s not out of the woods. The head injury is what we’re most concerned with, so the next 24-48 hours will be critical."

"Can I see him?" It was my first impulse, besides wanting to go out and personally
shoot the person responsible for this accident.

The doctor nodded. "He’s been taken up to ICU. I’ll let them know you’re
coming."

After that, I kinda just walked up there as if on autopilot. I knew the way; I’ve
walked these walls a lot more than I’d admit. Mulder tends to go between Washington
General and Northwestern Georgetown. It mostly depends on which one is closer at the
time of the incident.

The next hours are a blur. I sit mostly by his bedside, spending the maximum time
that I’m allowed at his bedside. My mother forces me down the cafeteria, I call in sick for work. Only twenty-four hours go by, but it seems like a lifetime. Sit, get up, eat. I do eat, but not for myself, but for the baby. I figure I might as well have some common
sense.

Mulder’s a fighter and doesn’t surprise me. After twenty-five hours he’s awake.
And then goes right back to sleep after groggily acknowledging me. It’s three hours later when he awakes again wanting to know how long he’s going to be laid up here that I know he’s going to be okay.

And I can’t be happier. Yet, it still bothers me.

If they wanted him dead, then why didn’t they do the job completely then?


Seven months, four days -- babytime

"I’ve been here for eight days, Scully. I want to go home."

He’s whining like a two year old. And I love it. He’s really making a great
recovery. Just this morning, I found him with a baby catalog in his lap and a credit card in his hand. How he got a hold of the catalog, I don’t know, but I decided that he has to get out of here soon before my (correction, now ‘our’) apartment is mistake for Toys ‘R Us.

Now he’s looking at me again, with that look he’s been perfecting for the last six
years. All I can do is smile and go to find his doctor to talk about release papers. He’s
beaming and talking about a nice comforter he found for the crib he built.

I still haven’t had the heart to tell him the crib he spent so much time putting up
collapsed. Yet, somehow, I know he won’t mind putting it back up.

Either that or he gives in and pays the extra fifteen dollars for construction.


Seven months, 19 days

He’s been home for a week and a half and things are going back to normal, well,
what you can call normal for Mulder. He was disappointed to see the crib back in pieces, but putting it back to together is the least strenuous activity I find him happy with. He seems to have forgotten how he still has another week and a half of medical leave before he can even step foot in the FBI.

Maybe next I should buy a self-assembling high chair.

"Shit! Damn piece of-"

Then again, maybe not.

My mind has almost forgotten about the accident, but almost isn’t enough in my
book. The police found no leads; the case was going nowhere. Mulder was alive and
almost as good as new, so I tried to concentrate on that. But I still can’t get rid of the
feeling I have in the pit of my stomach.

Neither can the baby. He or she kicks like crazy whenever I seem to think about
it. I don’t know what to make of that. Things have been too easy. I somehow doubt that "they" would just leave us alone. As my due date grows closer, I just get more worried. September 14th is circled on my calendar, but all I feel is dread about that day.

I curse myself for that feeling. A baby brings joy, but then you throw in the last six
years of my life and . . . well, you don’t exactly get the best feeling in the world. Maybe
I’m just paranoid.

Mulder taught me well.

"Scully?"

I turn and find him holding his hand, a look of pain on his face. I sigh and take his
palm, and look at the nice three inch gash that it now has.

"I think we should have someone come and assemble the crib," he says weakly and
all I can do is laugh.

"Ok, but first back to the ER. You’re going to need stitches," I answer, picking
up the car keys. He grimaces.

Yes, things are definitely getting back to normal in the Mulder world, at least.


Eight months

August 14th has arrived. The one month countdown has continued. My mother
told me she started packing for the hospital at eight months, just in case. That was a good thing, too, because I was two and a half weeks early. I decided I wasn’t going to be unpacked when this baby let me know it wanted out. Thus, at eight months, my bag was packed and by the door. Mulder just shook his head. I just smiled.

"Babies are like the government, Mulder. They arrive when they want, on their
own schedule."

"Own schedule? Yeah, I guess even screwing the people has a schedule these
days." From my position on the couch, I throw a pillow at him. He just ducks and goes
back to the paperwork he has laid in front of him.

Mulder’s gone back to work, though he has another week before he’s totally
cleared to go into the field again. He’s just been catching up on paperwork, a hell of a lot of paperwork. Yes, we’re still on background checks. And yes, Mulder’s less than
enthusiastic, just as before.

My maternity leave starts in about two weeks, though I can tell Mulder wishes I
would talk off earlier. He’s lucky I’m taking off two weeks _before_ the baby. If I really
listened to what I wanted, I’d be working until I went into labor. But I know I need some
time off, and I have swollen ankles to prove it.

I’ve been getting a lot of "You still here?" and "When is that baby due?" at work,
so I really do need to get out of there. They are driving me nuts. Especially all the
women who I never talk to who come up to me and give me advice that I don’t want and I
don’t need. Why does everybody think that just because I’m pregnant I need every piece of child rearing advice I can get? Plus, no one ever agrees. I’ve gotten more
contradictions than agreements. It’s very confusing.

Mulder and I still can’t agree on a name. He’s still insistent about the name
Elizabeth, and refuses to name a baby girl anything other than that. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if we had a boy.

I still want that girl, though.

The crib is up, thanks to my neighbor Nick upstairs who had just finishing
assembling his niece’s the week before. Mulder grumbled throughout the whole process, but it was basically because he was pissed he couldn’t do it himself. He got over it quick, as soon as he discovered that Nick was a Knicks fan. And thankfully a married Knicks fan. I try to remind him that I’m eight months pregnant, why would I go shopping now, but he doesn’t listen. That’s jealousy for you. And for some reason that’s kind of nice.

Life has become what I thought I’d hate. Somewhat normal hours, and a family. I
had always wanted a family, but somehow I had pictured it differently. However, some
things are meant to be.

Meant to be. That statement itself gives me a shiver. I keep thinking its just a
charade. That ‘they’re’ (why do I say that I always wonder) just waiting for Mulder’s and
my guard to go down. That out baby is going to be tested and …

I have an overactive imagination.

Or maybe not. It seemed I’m more paranoid then Mulder these days. Though, I
know when he thinks I’m not looking, he’s e-mailing the ‘guys’ and putting them on the
lookout. Yeah, this is a real storybook romance, all right. Perhaps I should start writing
children’s books while I’m at it.

During my last week at work, I got an interesting proposition offered to me by AD
Kersh. I could say good-bye to background checks and field work until my maternity
leave and for two months after it to go back to the autopsy game. At first, I considered it garbage and suspected something was behind it, but in the end, Mulder got me to take it. Said it would allow me more time with the baby for the first couple of months.

"You can always chase a fertilizer truck, Scully," he teased, and was in surprisingly
good spirits. For some reason I think it’s the fact that word got down that the X-Files
solving percentage is down. Way down. At this rate, though, I’m afraid Mulder may
resort to stealing them from the filing cabinets in the basement. If only it were basketball season…


8 months, 14 days

My heart’s still pounding.

Today was not a good day.

It was my last day of work before my maternity leave started. My mother was
taking me baby item shopping the next day, excited as could be over the fact the two week countdown was about to begin. However, she was going to drag me past the weeding displays I knew, but I wouldn’t mind so much.

After today, I don’t think I feel like shopping.

It was simple really. Some coworkers had (to my surprise) decided to give me a
cake and a kind of baby shower. Turns out, since Mulder and I got involved, that I
seemed a little ‘brighter’ to some people. I hadn’t noticed a change. I still don’t think
there is one. The thought was nice and I was all set to leave, a bag of baby gifts ready to take with me, when I noticed a small white envelope next to the bag.

I had picked it up, thinking I’d neglected it before and it went with one of the gifts.
Curious, I had opened it, reading its contents. My demeanor changed immediately.

"No ‘accident’ is a mistake. It’s only a warning. Watch your step." The sentence
has ingrained itself in my memory. It could be prank, but the line, typed in its simplicity
seemed like no prank to me. Mulder was the same, taking the paper and starting his own private investigation. I’m just off on my own, thinking of what it meant. I never saw
anyone drop the note off.

What made it even worse was the same message was in an e-mail sent to my
mailbox, the returning address not existing. It was a warning. What was going on here? I had two weeks until my due and now this? Something was going to happen.

Mulder immediately asked for two weeks off, and was on the phone at least an
hour tonight, before pulling me into the bedroom and telling me to pack.

"What is going on?" is my immediate reaction.

"Frohike got a hold of some security tapes from the Bureau. Someone likes us,
Scully. Just enough to tell us to get the hell out of here. At least until you have that
baby."

"What a minute, Mulder. I’m just as worried as you are, but where are we going
to go?"

"The guys found us a place. Upstate New York. And someone who might be able
to help us lose the trail." He’s throwing clothes into a duffel bag and starts to open my
drawers as well. For a moment he stops and meets my eye, before stepping toward me. "I love you, Scully. I’ll explain everything on the way, I promise. Just trust me?"

I start going through my drawers.

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